In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am a Francophile. Set a baguette, Brie and Ch. Carbonnieux in front of me and I can die a happy man. Visions of Cote d’Azur or a cafe on Champs-Élysées can bring peace to my tormented mind. And while I acknowledge and regret the national (actually mostly Parisian) reputation for arrogance and condescension, I defend neither it, nor their inexplicable fondness for the comedy of Jerry Lewis. With this in mind, I feel it my obligation to share with you the story of the Facel Vega Excellence, a singular automobile at once quintessentially American and undeniably Gallic.

While Facel Vega—which aside from half its name has no connection to that other Vega, s’il vous plait—had produced automobiles since 1955, the company itself dates back two decades, when M. Jean Daninos, late of Citroën and the military aircraft concern Bronzavia, founded Métallon, a fabricator of kitchen cabinets and sinks and, in 1939, established Forges et Atéliers de Construction d’Eure-et-Loire, (FACEL). The two firms combined and made aircraft engine components during World War II.

Although German forces continued to occupy one of Facel’s two factories after the war was over on French soil, by 1946 Facel had been made whole again. Following a quick reorganization of its facilities, the company resumed production of its original products, and soon started manufacturing automobile bodies for several French constructeurs, including…

Panhard…

Simca…

Bentley…

and Ford of France.

The next few years saw the company expand to four factories that continued to produce car bodies as well as various steel parts and products for France’s aircraft and railroad industries. Daninos realized that with the war over, his automotive clients would once again have the capacity to build their own bodies, and thus decided to produce his own complete car under the Facel brand.

The first all-Facel automobile, the “Vega”, or FV-1 coupe, made its debut at the 1954 Paris Auto Salon. Its coachwork may have been distinctly European, but to put it in motion, a 5.4L Hemi V8 was sourced from Chrysler Corporation and mated to either a two-speed PowerFlite automatic transmission or a Pont-à-Mousson four-speed manual box.

The FV-1 was followed by the 1956-58 FSV and the 1959-61 HK 500, both of which retained the Vega’s pillarless coupe body style and Chrysler power. The final HK 500 iteration (pictured) featured a 6.3L, 360 hp version that could propel the somewhat blocky, two-ton coupe to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds— quite a respectable figure at the time.

Facel Vega would introduce several new coupe and convertible models until the company shuttered its factories in 1964, but now we shall pause our history lesson and turn to the subject of this article, the 1958-61 Facel Vega Excellence.

Excellence, indeed! Previewed at the 1956 Paris auto show (to tremendous interest from press and public alike), the first Excellence production cars left the factory in 1958. This was an automobile like nothing that had come from Facel Vega before: a big (206.1″), four-door luxury sedan that featured such contemporary styling elements as tailfins, a wraparound windshield and a pillarless greenhouse—it was all quite commonplace, oui?

Mais non! For beneath that handsome greenhouse were suicide doors that, when opened, revealed the rather stunning lack of a conventional center post; instead, the doors latched into two round, sill-mounted receivers. Indeed, one must give due credit to the Excellence engineers who managed to maintain structural integrity without the benefit of a traditional structural member.

Daninos didn’t want to make a four door car, but ‘people asked me for four doors’. He regarded the Excellence as a mistake but once built, wanted it to be the French President’s car. President de Gaulle rebuffed the notion, reportedly put off by the car’s American engine and transmission; however, the Excellence apparently appealed to Mme. de Gaulle, who used one as her personal transport. An additional 12 Excellences were sold to French ambassadors around the world.

Its prestige was easy to understand: The Excellence cost four times as much as the luxurious Citroen DS—but at least some of that money went where it showed. The interior was nothing less than sybaritic; in addition to some of the finest leather upholstery this side of Crewe, it featured a center-console makeup kit, comprising a chromed brush-and-comb set and two perfume atomizers, for rear-seat passengers.

There was full instrumentation on board, some of which monitored the activity of the 6.3L, 360 hp Chrysler Hemi beneath the hood. Chrysler stopped offering the Hemi for 1958, but Facel continued to use the engine until their supply ran out, in late 1958. The switch was made to Chrysler’s big-block 5.9L “Wedge” engine, also rated at 360 hp. Both engines could be mated to either a Pont-a-Mousson four-speed manual transmission or to Chrysler’s TorqueFlite automatic. A mere 11 first-generation Excellences were produced, the final one going to American actress Ava Gardner.

The change in engines defined the second-generation Excellence, internally designated EX1. Built from October 1958 to July 1961, this was the most-produced version of the Excellence, at 137 finished units. Although front disc brakes were now available for the first time, ultimately only five cars were fitted with them.

The third and final iteration of the Excellence, the EX2, arrived in July 1961. The significantly face-lifted EX2 had lost the wraparound windshield of its predecessors and now wore much shorter tailfins. Once more, a 6.3L Chrysler V8, this time rated at 390 hp, provided power. In retrospect, the restyle seems a bit puzzling; the new model’s appearance wasn’t all that different from the car it replaced, and ultimately only eight EX2s would be produced.

In 1959, a New York-based syndicate was toying with the idea of a Packard revival (a perfectly awful idea that nevertheless seems to surface every few years), and was approached by Daninos, whose proposition was to bring traditional Packard styling cues and the Packard V8 to the Excellence, which would then be rebadged and sold as a Packard at Studebaker-Packard dealerships. The problem was, S-P was already the sales channel for another luxury import called Mercedes-Benz. The powers at Daimler-Benz quickly expressed their displeasure to S-P president Harold Churchill, pointing out that Facel could not come close to providing S-P with quick cash infusions when needed. Churchill, a pragmatic man who could add and subtract, quickly abandoned the Excellence-as-Packard idea before a prototype could be built.

Facel Vega scrambled to survive by introducing the Faciella coupe, which used a Facel-engineered engine based on an Alfa Romeo design. In the finest Italian tradition, it proved so trouble-plagued that Facel soon dropped it in favor of a Volvo-sourced engine; however, the damage was done, and it destroyed what remained of the brand’s reputation. In July 1962, Facel was forced into receivership. Operations were allowed to continue under court oversight.

Facel’s borrowed time ran out on Halloween Day 1964, when the company closed operations permanently after having produced some 2,900 cars. Although it lived only a decade, the Facel Vega nameplate continues to attract interest among auto historians, classic car enthusiasts, and in thriving Facel Vega clubs in America, Germany, the UK, Holland and of course, France. The marque’s roster of owners boasts such names as Pablo Picasso, Ringo Starr, Stirling Moss, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, as well as several kings, heads of state, and ambassadors. Today, a 1958 Condition-3 Excellence commands $165,000, and a Condition-2 example upwards of $200,000–providing you can find one for sale.

Writing this post involved cross-checking five different online and print sources; in the process, I learned more about Facel Vega that I’ll ever need to know, and that started me thinking: why the trouble? Why do people like us spend valuable time researching such obscure and often forgotten cars with the same passion that many other guys have for baseball statistics or the discographies of rock bands? Here’s why: Because it matters. Maybe not to everyone, but to those of us who look at an old car, even one produced in the millions, not so much as a piece of metal but as a part of history–a history punctuated with the oddball, the ahead-of-their-time, the timelessly beautiful and the dreadfully ugly; in other words, those that surprise and delight and make car life a lot more interesting. Depending on whom you ask, the Excellence is any or all of these things, and thus worthy of a place at our table.

Yeah, this has Packard written all over it. But the lack of cash surely would have doomed it. Maybe if George Mason hadn’t died and the AMC merger with S-P had went through, a Facel Vega-based Packard could have become a reality and worthy competitor to the Big 3’s luxury cars. Instead, it was the depressing ’57-’58 Packardbakers.

Although I gather the proposal didn’t survive long enough for anyone to do a rendering of the Packardized Excellence, it would have been a very easy restyle. It’s not hard to imagine transforming the grille into a centrally focused classic Packard grille borrowing from the Request concept. In back, the finned version already has echoes of ’58 Studebaker, so oddly the result would have been far more distinctive than the Packardbakers, while still showing some corporate design themes.

The other challenge, though, would have been to re-engineer and tool up for anything resembling mass production. At the quoted production figures, these must have been hand-built cars.

Worthy of our attention, indeed; thanks for bringing your attention to the Facel Vega story, and particularly to this flagship automobile.

Facel Vega was at least on the periphery of car enthusiasts’ attention when it was in business. Theirs weren’t cars that one would aspire to own, but perhaps aspire to simply see. The Excellence was singularly handsome and elegant.

What a fascinating story — I never knew that a 4-dr. Facel was ever produced, but now having seen and read about it, I’d be hard pressed to identify and better looking sedan that’s ever been made. To my eyes, this was a simply beautiful car — thought I’m debating which generation of these sedans looks the best.

While I do admire that the engineers were able to eliminate the B pillar, their execution is quite flawed. Right where the rear seat passengers feet would pass over the sill to enter or exit the car, they created a trip hazard with that round latching post. Even if their feet cleared it it would likely catch ladies high heels, long skirts and men’s pant cuffs. The B pillar would be easier to live with. A very impressive car otherwise.

When another country does an American style car, it is interesting to see what they keep and change, Love the exhaust through the bumper and the wraparound windshield. Find myself surprised that things like that would appeal to Europeans.

Also nice the French had a 4 speed that could contain a hemi V8. I think a handful of the same transmission found their way into early Chrysler 300s.

While it is great to see an American style car trimmed out to Rolls Royce standards. I wonder if a small outfit like Facel was really able to take the time to engineer for quiet and smoothness that was available off the rack from Cadillac and Lincoln.

The 61 Lincoln must have been quite jarring to Facel. The final restyle reminds me of the Engel restyle of the Imperial where he had to use some old parts that clashed somewhat with the new Lincoln inspiration.

Yup, the Pont-à-Mousson four-speed was offered on a very small number of Chrysler 300F cars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, much less driven one — there were like 15 — but I think the four-speed sounded like a better idea than it was. The ratios were 3.35/1.96/1.36/1.00, so first was way too low unless you had a taller axle ratio than Chrysler offered. TorqueFlite made way more sense.

The four door hardtop may be my favorite body style, partially because even the frumpiest sedan can turn glamorous as a hardtop, and partially out of appreciation for the engineering it took to make it work.

Early four door hardtops had a number of compromises that eventually got better, but trying to pull off this style with suicide doors was nearly, in the case of the Facel,………..suicide. When I learned that there was French hardtop some years ago, I had to read up, and apparently the choice for Facel go with this was nearly a fatal flaw; the doors would sometimes simply fall open during hard driving.

Still, a gorgeous car, and it does pull off a few retro Packard cues in the front end, and it works. The retro upright center grill has usually been unpopular, as designers from the Edsel to the Subaru Tribeca can tell you.

I think the total lack of a post there, while breathtaking, is really only a flaw due to the size of the car and of the opening? I can think of a couple others who have done the totally pillarless hardtop, namely the Lancia Appia of the 50’s/60’s and the Nissan Stanza Wagon of the 80’s, both of which were considerably smaller vehicles.

The Appia and Stanza are quite different in that they have full “sedan style” frames around their windows. Part of the frames included additional attachment points to the body of the car when the doors were closed. The frames along with their attachment points, would add considerable additional structural rigidity to the body, and lessen the likelihood of a latch failure. But, I still have wonder why the heck these vehicles were built this way, I don’t see any functional or style benefit to what they did with these cars.

And, you are right, a much smaller opening without monstrously long and heavy body extensions beyond the passenger compartment.

Ford struggled with even struggled with their ’58-’60 Lincoln four door hardtops with conventionally hinged doors on a half pillar. Just a big, loosey goosey car with that needed a lot more structural rigidity to pull off what they were doing. But, these were an early unibody for Ford, and they already had a serious weight problem. A few more steel beams under the car and these yachts might have sailed past the three ton mark.

The Appia and Stanza, what were they thinking?

J P Cavanaugh

Posted October 19, 2016 at 12:34 PM

Cadillac’s 58 Eldorado Brougham is as close as anything else I have seen. Looking at the stubby sort-of-pillar, especially the angle that it comes out of the floor, I cannot imagine that it provided much rigidity.

Tatra87

Posted October 20, 2016 at 7:41 PM

You can add the Fiat 508C (a.k.a Simca 8) and all Salmson saloons until 1951 to the list of “true” pillarless cars. There must be more….

James Slick

Posted October 20, 2016 at 7:48 PM

I saw a picture of a 1920s sedan that definitely looked like a “hardtop”, YMMV!

hubba

Posted October 25, 2016 at 2:57 AM

Aside from structural necessity, I’m hard pressed to think of a single good reason to use a solid vertical pillar beween facing doors on a car. Ideally, the door would latch to a lug instead of a pillar, or simply be held closed by immobilizing the latch. I suppose the latch is useful to attach a shoulder belt, but I’d rather have a seat mounted belt.

I always thought th FV would be the car to have if money were no object and one really wanted to separate oneself from conventional thinkers. One component of car choice has always been, “Who can I attract with this?”, but there’s a second step in the process: “Who actually wants to get in and go for a ride? Swoopy Ferraris and Astons have the sexiness, but the Facel projects the comfort of a Bentley coupe with a touch of period modernity and even more exclusivity. Did Ava Gardener drive her Excellence? The lack of a center pillar to isolate the driver would seem a bit socialistic for use of a chauffeur. It’s a car suited not so much for driving the kids to school in your pajamas and slippers, but for taking another glamorous couple to the Country Club banquet. The only questionable note was the kit car dash layout.

The “wood” actually being painted metal floored me when I first heard about it (in conjunction with an HK500, which has a near-identical dash layout IIRC). Still this has to rate as, for my money, the classiest “fake” wood ever.

This is one of the first things I read this morning… a most excellent, fascinating piece. To echo Eric703, until today, I never knew Facel Vega had made anything with more than two doors. All iterations in this feature were gorgeous pieces of automotive sculpture, but I especially like the last version which was sans “panoramic” windshield.

There have been some exceptionally good reads on CC lately, and this one is toward the head of the pack.

Fabulous cars, I regret that I’ve never seen one. Those are some of the most beautiful interiors ever. Most definitely, this is something that a wealthy freethinker would buy. Great article, Imperialist!

A simple black steering wheel was considered very tasteful and classy then. Rolls Royce and Bentley used a similar plain black wheel for seemingly forever. This is not an American “Brougham” with a tacky over-wrought wheel and interior, but a genuinely tasteful car of the era.

Wood steering wheels like the classic Nardi belonged in sports cars back then. Those was really the two choices then for tasteful steering wheels: black and wood, each for its own designated purpose.

Thank you for this article – somehow, I have always felt that the Vega was the epitome of elegance and exclusivity in automobiles. If money were no object, I would have one, an EX1, although I would cheat a bit and install a modern V8, a multi speed automatic, modern air conditioning, and a bespoke sound system – all as invisibly as possible so as not to spoil the ambiance….

Now, excuse me while I walk to the 7-11 to buy some scratch-off Lotto tickets…

My favorite Facel Vega and one of the nicest-looking European cars ever. I like hardtop coupes but I like 4 door hardtops even better and European manufacturers didn’t make many of these. It’s usually a good thing that I prefer hardtop sedans as most cars that were available as 4 door hardtops are still inexpensive. But this example isn’t in my price range!

Thanks for showing many interesting interior details. The interior of this car is just as impressive as the exterior.

Imperialist, thank you for the wonderfully research history of one of my all-time favorites! My first exposure to the Facel-Vega and the Excellence came in a 1971 Cars & Parts magazine history by Richard Langworth. Concurrent to that, I came face to face with a ’60 HK 500 in a local Chrysler enthusiast’s collection, I was smitten. Now, to reveal the awful truth: the owner offered that ’60 HK 500 to me for $2,000! Nearly broke and with college in the offing I had to pass……argh! I’ll never live that one down!

Fall of 1972 at Hershey was the first time I ever laid eyes on an Excellence, red on red as pictured, it seemed like a motorcar from a completely alien world to mine, making it even more appealing. Excellence sightings in succeeding years can be counted on one hand with a couple fingers left over.

Now, here a concept probably never considered at the time: the idea of a Packard revival with the Excellence was a long shot but given its Chrysler powertrain a low-volume, ultra-luxury Crown Imperial variant was almost a natural. Given a clean, elegant, reskin with Imperial styling features for 1961, handcrafted, luxurious and very exclusive, it could have been just the halo model to really draw attention to the Imperial line much as the Eldorado Broughams had for Cadillac. Truly a lost opportunity.

In grade and junior high school I lived for the day that Motor Trend arrived in our mailbox. The April 1961 Imported Car Issue was one of my favorites of all time and, at age 11, introduced me to this car. From that point on Mr. SmartyPants would say to classmates that this was one of his favorite cars.

I first discovered the Excellence in the pages of a “coffee table” type classic car book in the early 90’s. (Still have it I’m sure–I could scan it but I don’t know that there will be any useful information not covered here.) And I was immediately smitten by the lines, the elegance, the interior, and the fact that it was powered by the legendary Hemi, though an early version. The car looks like nothing else (other than its FV/S/HK500 stablemate) and is, in my humble opinion, an absolute triumph of design–striking without being flamboyant, voluptuous but tailored, unique but in a way that stands out for all the right reasons and none of the wrong ones.

Time hasn’t done anything to cool my fervor–quite the opposite, in the transition from childhood to adulthood and the advent of the internet, time has only heightened my appreciation for the beauty and exclusivity of these singular cars. Tailfins and all, the original design is the finer one for me–while the deletion of the wraparound screen and fins do modernize the design, the restyled tail looks like the compromise it is. The comparison made to the mid 60’s Imperial is quite apt here.

A fantastic article on a car that would hold a prime position in my dream garage.

Terrific piece on something I knew too little about. As a fellow Francophile (but without the brie) “merci, mon ami!”

I suppose we could see Facel-Vega as a French take on Jensen or Bristol, with the elegant styling, hand crafted luxury interiors and American power train. You’re right that some of the earlier cars were a bit heavy looking, but they had some wonderful and very French) details, like the tail lights on the HK500, the reading lights and what looks like a very French approach to ergonomics.

Out of interest, do you know of the wraparound screen was bespoke or borrowed from elsewhere?

Fantastic! I’ve had a thing for the Excellence since seeing them described in the in the first issue of CA I bought back about 1985. Having the Chrysler connection just makes them better.

Unfortunately a lot of the source material has not been translated, and Martin Buckley’s recent book is still priced in proportion to its subject. Peter Satori, dealer of Glendale and Pasadena, submitted examples for testing on a number of occasions and the comparisons to the Silver Cloud and Adenauer 300d always showed it in a good light.

One remark I recall was a quote by Daninos, the firm never prospered because the customers at that level never paid list price. Never. Apparently that’s just for ordinary people.

In addition to unlatching while moving, I’ve read that the flex in the body affected the door operation unless the ground was reasonably flat they could jamb upsetting the occupants and waiting crowds, much like the Skyliners of the same period. There are latching modification tutorials on YouTube should any Curbivore be in need.

All French Day was held here last Sunday but no examples appeared…years ago there was any early car being offered for sale, yes it had the 392 V8. With no way of actually affording it I was allowed to see the car in storage and take a few photos – Paris registration number painted on the back. Car was imported from Nevada hence the deterioration of the trim, but it was virtually rust free. Most of the brightwork is stainless steel.

I wonder if the list price issue was similar to Aston Martin. There is a famous quote from David Brown when he owned the company, when a friend asked if he could pay cost rather than list price: “Certainly, that will be £1,000 over the list price”!

I have seen a couple of Facel Vegas, but never an Excellence, so it is great to read more about them.

It’s interesting how they got started — basically as a body-making / design shop, kind of like the bigger Italian carrozzerie, though the design bit of the equation was sometimes left to others (Panhards were designed in-house; the Bentleys were penned by PininFarina, etc.).

The Facel II is probably the best-looking Facel and the most beautiful French car of the ’60s, tied with the Panhard 24. The Excellence is more ’50s, though still stunning.

I’ve never seen an Excellence in real life. Perhaps that’s for the best, as I might then be tempted to buy one. But that means I’d probably need to find another one. So perhaps I’m safe from temptation just because of the rarity of the thing.

I did see a Facel II once, which caused my first case of acute Facelitis. Fortunately, I was about 20 at the time, so I got over it by buying a book on Facels. The bug has always remained within, dormant. But when I read anything on the V8 Facels, I get flare-ups…

“acute facelitis” is awesome! (if only Humana covered it…) It’s interesting what cars “push our buttons”. I’m a Broughamantic who will go GaGa at a Corvair sighting (both generations) I’d take any random Buick Electra over any BMW 3 Series, But love me some AMC Sportwagons! We will never figure out this odd affinity we have for what is largely an extension of our legs, But I’m certainly thankful for the variety of the objects of our addiction. (Humana should at least give me a 64 Imperial to assuage my facelitis…)

Piloted an Excellence to a car show at the office yesterday. Before the Excellence, had a Facel II for 16 yrs, 6 of which it was my only car and daily driver. An HK500 and three Facellias were also in the stable from time to time. The Excellence looks like an Eldorado Broughham, but is compact in comparison – really a 4-door HK500 GT. Have had no trouble keeping up with period sports cars in road rallies!